How to get the online decorators in to redesign a room for less than £200

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When considering a new look for a room, “getting an interior designer in” has long been the preserve of the well-heeled. For those who live in the very best neighbourhoods – in the kind of homes where driveways are gated and a cavernous reception room comes as standard – going in for something different decor-wise calls for a professional eye: all mood boards, colour palletes… and a long shopping list for new furnishings. When you’ve got high ceilings and even higher design ambitions, you need deep pockets.

How the Dulux living room above looked before its makeover

This rarefied notion of home improvement has long riled Cornelia De Ruiter, founder of Homewings, a newly launched online platform designed to bring a professional interior design service to the masses.

“In the UK, interior design is still seen as a far more exclusive service than in the US, a thing for ladies who lunch. It’s a shame. It is not how the market should be seen. It is a creative industry that can benefit all people, if they have the right access.”

Her solution is a quick-hit of design advice, which costs from £49 per room, is arranged online, and without the need for a designer to step foot in your home. Homewings users upload a sketched floorplan and are paired with a designer who they collaborate via Skype and a messaging service to create a colour scheme, mood board, room plan and finally a shopping list – all within a two-week period. There’s no pressure to buy suggested products, and you set the budget.

“For us,” says De Ruiter, “it was crucial to ensure that our designers are not incentivised to sell you furniture, which means they are just as excited to take on a big or small-budget job.”

It's easy to find a stylist online

The company launched six months ago, has 50 designers on its books and feels like the do-it-yourself Airbnb of e-design.

The United States is the pioneer of the growing trend for remote, virtual interior design, where the concept has been gaining in popularity and sophistication over the last few years. Inbox Interiors, Buy My Eye and Design In a Box provide erudite, if pricier, services linking civilians with a top-drawer designer for a quick spatial overhaul.

With Decorist one of the cheapest models, you can opt for a makeover with design boards and recommendations based on photographs and a questionnaire about their room within a few weeks – for a flat fee of $199. Past users are full of praise, with one family-of-five enthusing: “Decorist helped make my Pinterest inspiration a reality – on my budget.”

My spare room is a miserable pit of a space that doubles up as an office. It is overflowing with junk, spare clothes and is about as roomy as a Ford Mondeo

The UK is gradually catching up as other companies testing the benefits of remote design. Decology launched last month, and charges £250, £500 or £800 to refresh your room, depending on whether you opt for a “up-and-coming”, “top of their game” or “master” designer, and a 100 per cent money back guarantee if you are not “delighted” by their suggestions.

For those looking for basic design advice, colour specialists Dulux has launched a £75 video consultation that concludes with a 3D rendered image to aid you along your “decorating journey”. DFS has a Room Planner online tool and app that showcases their products in a representation of your home. Ikea and Homebase are also dipping their toe into the digital design market.

A freshly-designed Dulux room

But online “room visualisers” – which enable you to imagine how a piece of furniture might look in your home – only take you so far. I signed up to Homewings’s £199 “classic” package, which promises two weeks’ online design time with an expert, a digital concept board, furniture placement plan, set-up instructions and a clickable shopping list. My spare room is a miserable pit of a space that doubles up as an office. It is overflowing with junk, spare clothes and is about as roomy as a Ford Mondeo.

I was assigned Christine Tse, a New York-raised, London-based designer for Homewings who has 10 years’ commercial experience. Over Skype, she asked me questions such as whether I need extra storage (yes), was there anything I liked about my room and wanted to keep (no), what are my favourite colours (neutrals, blues), how I used the space now, and what was my budget (£1,500 for all furniture, including a headboard for the bed and cupboards).

I uploaded a hastily sketched floorplan and photographs, and by return was sent concept images of beautiful rooms that I might draw inspiration from. We narrowed it down to preferred furniture and accessories – no to fluffy wall hangings, yes to antique brass mirrors – and finished with a floorplan that moved existing furniture into new locations, with new additions from The White Company, Ikea, John Lewis and Anthropologie. For a design Luddite like myself, it was a breath of fresh air and I agreed with everything she suggested.

Tse, who for the £199 fee will work for between five and seven hours, is thrilled by the range of homeowners she is now able to help online.

“I love how affordable and accessible it is. I do it freelance, and it doesn’t use up a lot of my time as I don’t have to go to clients home to measure everything. The only downside is that I am not able to go and see the effect of natural light at the site itself.”

And the biggest complaint from those that she helps? “I’ve seen so many mistakes made by people who don’t measure their room properly and then buy things that don’t fit. You have to make sure your measurements are precise.”

De Ruiter believes the cross section of customers they are seeing is already proof of the mass appeal of e-design.

“We have the young, urban professionals – millennials who are comfortable with online services – who are renting for the first time but want to turn their space into something nice. We also have old people who are not tech-savvy at all. We get men who are price sensitive and think our service is better than paying an interior designer a ton of money, and mummies who want to redecorate kids’ rooms.”

From where I’m standing in my lovely new study, digital zhuzhing is not just democratising good interior design – it could be the future.